What a very long blog break! I had not planned to remain silent for more than two months, I am just feeling slightly restless and unmotivated in regard of the blog and what I am doing here. I have not sewed in quite some time, mostly because of lack of beautiful fabrics, I am not really happy with what Cologne fabric stores offer and my next trip to Paris is only scheduled for summer. I also lack the energy for the kind of sewing projects that really interest me (fantastic costumes like the ones that Angela Clayton does) and I am somewhat bored by sewing everyday clothes. A little identity crisis, in other words :-) I do not plan to abandon this blog though and will try to update it more often and see what direction it takes. Other than with sewing and blogging I was quite productive in the last months, I spent a lot of time with decorating and furnishing my flat, baking cakes and taking care of and arranging flowers and plants. Here below some snapshots of the things that make me happy right now. À bientot!

Im Winter habe ich diese antike Bank in Form von zwei Hunden ersteigert und sie wandert im Moment in verschiedenen Varianten durch meine Wohnung bis sie ihren Platz gefunden haben wird. Eigentlich ist sie zu schade um als Blumenständer zu dienen aber da ich im Frühling angefangen habe Freude an selbstgebundenen Sträußen zu finden musste sie ein paar Mal zweckentfremdet werden // In winter I bought this amazing antique wooden bench in the form of two dogs at an auction which is currently still wandering around my flat until I will have found it’s perfect place. The bench is much too pretty on its own to serve as a jardinière but since I discovered how much I like to arrange flowers this spring it has served this purpose for some times.

Zum ersten Mal seit Jahren besitze ich wieder einen richtigen Ofen & backe und koche dementsprechend gerade ohne Unterlass. Hier sind zwei Kuchen die ich in der letzten Zeit gebacken habe, der erste ist für meine 85 Jahre alt gewordene Kollegin (sie liebt Lavendel also habe ich welchen aus Marzipan geformt) und der zweite ist ein Dankeschön für einen Elektriker der mir einige Dinge in der Wohnung angebracht hat (ich habe ihn mit einem Stromkreis aus Fondant dekoriert) // For the first time in years I own a proper stove and I am baking and cooking a lot right now. Here are two snapshots of cakes that I made in the last weeks, the first one is for the 85 birthday of a beloved colleague (she loves lavender and so I sculpted a little bouquet of marzipan) and the second one was a thank-you gift for an electrician that helped me install some things in my flat (I created a electric circuit out if fondant).

I hatte flauschigen Besuch für eine Weile & habe wieder bemerkt wie gerne ich ein eine eigene Katze hätte. Irgendwann mal… :-) // I had this little fluffy friend over for some time and realized again how much I would like to have a cat for myself. Some day… :-)

Noch mehr Sträuße und getrocknete Blumen aus dem vorletzten Sommer, ich muss mir noch überlegen was ich damit mache. // Even more bouquets and also some dried and pressed flowers from the summer before last, I am still unsure what I will do with those.

I finally sewed a dress again! And even better, it’s a great and very wearable one (even if quite extravagant, but that does not bother me). I bought the very flamboyant fabric at a street market in Amsterdam last winter but had no idea of what to do with it for quite some time. After my move to a new city I went through my Burda magazine issues and picked up the very first issue that I bought after I started sewing again, the one of March 2013. It features some very pretty 50s inspired dresses and one in particular caught my fancy with its gathers, keyhole neckline and a pretty skirt that seemed fitting for the softly draped fabric that I had. I made a muslin and after some small changes started cutting out the fabric, only to then hit a wall – how do I match the pattern, and does that even make sense? Shall I try to make it symmetrical or match the seams? This kind of thinking usually confuses me a lot and so I put the dress aside and did nothing for a couple of weeks. Well, not exactly nothing, I did a lot of small and little things in my new flat (I will share this sometime next year I guess) but I had not much interest in sewing. A few weeks later I then finally pulled myself together and cut the fabric (not giving much thought of pattern matching which was quite a good thing to do) and sewed it together in a couple of evenings. But since it then rained almost all the time for some weeks we never had a good opportunity to take pictures so there was even more delay… every step of making this took some unexpected time but in the end it was totally worth it, I am beyond happy about my new pretty dress :-)

A few comments about constructing the dress – my muslin was made in size 36 and was a bit tight at the bust so I chose size 38 instead which was then too big in the waist, my usual struggles. Not really a problem though, I much prefer a slightly too large dress to an uncomfortably tight one and I am currently not in mood for complicated pattern modifications anyway. There is a little fold left and right of the waist on the back bodice as a result but that may also be caused by the pattern itself (the back bodice is much longer than the front bodice). Since the fabric of the pattern is so busy I decided to use piping to emphasize the bodice pieces and I am particularly happy how well that worked at the keyhole neck (the neck line is rather lower than I usually prefer but still acceptable). In the original pattern the sleeves are gathered with a cuff but I omitted this step when I made the muslin and liked the resulting batwing sleeves so much that I just kept them. Since I now ended up with having a new spring/summer dress at the beginning of winter an outdoor photo shooting was out of question so we decided to take pictures at the historical museum of Leverkusen (which had the added and welcome side effect of being able to learn some things about the town that I live in :-) I am not quite sure if I will have enough time to make a christmas dress for myself this year (there is so much do to right now!) but I still have some past photoshoots that I will post in December. And who knows, maybe time will permit some more sewing after all… see you soon, in any way!

Oh, and lastly two notes about the pictures – the second photo at the beginning shows a steel mill, not a fire or battle field… and I am tying to figure out who the manufacturer of the piano was on the weird one in the middle :-)

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Hello, my name is Rike and I blog here in German and English. I grew up by the baltic sea and moved to Cologne a few years ago. I like art and illustrations, vintage and modern fashion and all things cute and beautiful. And sewing my own clothes, which this blog is mostly about.

I usually update my blog about two times a month with pictures of finished sewing projects or everyday outfits. I write about other things that happen in my life and post snapshots of current sewing projects on my tumblr:

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